Easy Robots

Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers! As all you know by now, I'm loving this new show, Mr. Robot. Among the many things going for this innovative and captivating program is the realism of the hacking. I am using this series titled "The Hacks of Mr. Robot" to demonstrate the ha ...more

Welcome back, my tenderfoot hackers! A number of you have written me telling me how much you enjoy the Mr. Robot series on USA Network. I am also a huge fan! If you haven't seen it yet, you should. It may be the best show on TV right now. Mr. Robot is about a young man with ...more

Welcome back, my rookie hackers! As most of you know, Mr. Robot is probably the best hacker TV show ever! This is a great show about a cyber security engineer who is being enticed to hack the very corporation he's being paid to protect. This show is so good, I began a series ...more

Welcome back, my novice hackers! Episode 6 of Mr. Robot has come and gone and, as usual, it did not disappoint. Once again, our hero, Elliot, has used his extraordinary intellect and hacking skills to awe and inspire us. In this episode, Elliot is being blackmailed by the ru ...more

Though named "Walker," this robot doesn't really ambulate so much as shimmy. Which, to tell the truth, is fine by us. Lots of gross things walk. Only cute things dance. Bot builder Randy Sarafan explains his motivation: My goal with Walker Bot was to make a 4-legged walking ...more

In this four-part science tutorial, learn how to make a model of a hand that works like a real hand: with tendons that move the fingers. This is a great tool to teach kids the body's inner workings. Part 1 includes an introduction and parts 2-4 include the step-by-step instruc ...more

Welcome back, my hacker apprentices! A you know, Mr. Robot is my favorite TV show this year, and not just for the realistic hacking. Rami Malek, the actor who plays Elliot, is incomparable in his depiction of a young man with social anxiety who is alienated from a superficial ...more

Welcome back, my tenderfoot hackers! Well, the first season of Mr. Robot just ended and Elliot and fsociety successfully took down Evil Corp! They have effectively destroyed over 70% of the world's consumer and student debt! Free at last! Free at last! Of course, global finan ...more

This do it yourself robot can be made out of many materials you can find around your house. You'll need a few special non household items, such as an arduino and a class 3 laser. However, once you assemble everything correctly, you can make a sentry robot inspired by the robot ...more

Cheaper (and perhaps cuter) than a maid, the simple scrub bot is easy and cheap to make: "This state of the art cleaning robot is great at polishing floors and shining glass tables (provided that you soap it up first). It also disperses small particulates evenly across your f ...more

Samy Kamkar, security researcher and friend of WonderHowTo, just had one of his devices featured in Mr. Robot. If you've never heard of Samy, you've at least probably heard of one of his hacks. For instance, the Samy computer worm that hacked MySpace, his compressed air trick ...more

Check out this Make Magazine segment on building mini robots. Then you can move onto huge ones like Big Dog! John Park builds some lively and inexpensive miniature robots. Starting with a simple vibrabot made from a scrub brush, John assembles a solar junkbot and a slightly m ...more

Welcome back, my nascent hackers! In the conclusion of the Mr. Robot television series, Elliot and fsociety successfully completed their mission of encrypting all of Evil Corp's data with AES-128 encryption and destroying the key. Now that all of the data on Evil Corp's serv ...more

Welcome back, my nascent hackers! Although my favorite TV show, Mr. Robot, had completed its first season already, I have not completed demonstrating the hacks that Elliot used in the show. (By the way, I can't wait for season 2!) In several episodes, Elliot was seen sending ...more

The BristleBot is a simple and tiny robot with an agenda. The ingredients? One toothbrush, a battery, and a pager motor. The result? Serious fun. The BristleBot is our take on the popular vibrobot, a simple category of robot that is controlled by a single vibrating (eccentric) ...more

The light sensor on a Lego Mindstorms NXT robot can be used to help the robot navigate obstacles or follow light sources. Learn how to program light sensors and the calibration program in the Lego Mindstorms NXT robotics system using movement blocks within the NXT programming ...more

A perfect project for the budding roboticist in you! This video shows you how to make a small robot gripper using basic household items. Press the button and make the robot's come together! You will need: a small blow torch or butane lighter, a glue gun, a dremel or rotary too ...more

These how-to videos provide an introduction and tutorial to LEGO Mindstorms NXT. Topics discussed are (1) what is included with the NXT robotics kit (2) how to build a simple NXT robot (3) programming an NXT robot and (4) testing an NXT robot. Watch this video tutorial series ...more

Mousey the junk bot is a light sensing robot made out of an old computer mouse. Bre Pettis of Make Magazine goes over how the pieces are installed and talks about some mistakes that he wishes he could have avoided. This project requires a drill, a dremel, and soldering skills.

If you thought humans were reading your résumé, think again. Robots do, and their one solitary objective is to systematically crush the hopes and dreams of those who don't make the cut. Instead of paying a few humans to read thousands of résumés over a couple weeks, many compa ...more

Shodan calls itself "the search engine for internet-connected devices." With so many devices connected to the internet featuring varying levels of security, the special capabilities of this search engine mean it can provide a list of devices to test and attack. In this tutoria ...more

You're never too young to start building your vast swarm of robotic minions. Taking over the world requires a whole lot of robots. The sheer volume of robots needed means your first wave will have to be made of cheap materials. After they take over key resources, you can upgra ...more

In this tutorial, we learn how to make a robot car. To start, you will need to prepare the sensors by placing in the pins and soldering. After this, you will need to connect the wires to these and solder them into the correct places. Use a map to find the correct placement for ...more

This amazing ball catching robot named TOTO (Tracking of Thrown Objects) has been built to speed up "fully automated production systems...where parts will be transported between workstations by robotic throwing and catching". I'd love to see multiples of this robot in action, ...more

Arachnophilia and technosexuals rejoice. This whimsical, skittering robot takes only 5 minutes of tinkering. This simple toy is made possible with a bit of solder, AAA battery, copper wire and an old mobile phone's vibrating motor. Like the EvilMadScientist's Bristlebot, this ...more

Social engineering is a pretty important item in a hacker's toolkit. In Mr robot there was a time, we saw Elliot using social engineering to gain access to his therapist's boyfriend's email and bank accounts by calling him and pretending to be someone from his bank, then Elli ...more

Learn how to origami a crane with this demonstration by a Japanese surgeon. Watch as he makes origami with the DaVinci robot, a surgical tool powered by state-of-the-art robotic technology. The surgeon’s hand movements are scaled, filtered and seamlessly translated into precis ...more

If you want to become a great robotics engineer, then you need to start out small, and this robot is a great first-time project. It's the simplest kind of robot, with only one motor and a gear box, but it moves really interesting, capable of shimmying across a rope. You can se ...more

Create teenie tiny solar robots with Bre Pettis of Make Magazine. Learn to make little teeny tiny robots called beambots that are powered by the sun! One of the great things about these little solar powered bots is that you can make them from scavenged materials. Use parts fro ...more

Jason Welsh shows you how to model a mech robot in Maya. NOTE: This link is to a Flash version of the first 5 minutes of this 45 minute tutorial. A download link is provided on the veoh.com page for the full WMP tutorial.

In this clip, you will learn an extremely impressive pop n lock inspired dance move from Michael Jackson. This "robot pop" is used in many of MJ's dances and creates an extremely cool effect. If you think you can control your body very carefully, then check this clip out and p ...more

When you think of robots, you probably think of things that have more than three parts. Not this robot! If you want a robotics project to try that doesn't require an MIT degree, watch this video for instructions on how to build a 'Dizzy Robot' out of only some thin tin, a page ...more

A five minute film on how to make your own edible robot. Edible robotics is an exciting new field of research into robots as food and prey. This research was supported by Robo250, the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, the Mattress Factory and MAYA Design, Inc.

This Japanese "Precision Walk" contest has such an extreme military regime vibe, these kids would put even the Nazis to shame. If you like this, don't miss South Korea's equally impressive display of audience synchronization. Previously, The Brain-Defying Human LCD Screen.

This is a three part video on how to make a swashbot robot. Check it out! Part 1 of 3 - How to Build a Swashbot robot. Part 2 of 3 - How to Build a Swashbot robot. Part 3 of 3 - How to Build a Swashbot robot.

In 2007, Nintendo introduced the world to motion control video games with the Wii. Microsoft and Sony built on Nintendo's phenomenal success and released their own motion control products for the XBox 360 and Playstation 3 late in 2010: the Kinect and the Move. The Move is bas ...more

There are plenty of tank robots out there, but how many of them can recognize 3D objects and map their environment? Tanky, the tracked mobile robot, can do all that and more while rolling around on his bicycle chain treads. Created as a Master's thesis project, Tanky is made a ...more

If you're like me, you were always jealous of the kids with rich parents who got to ride around in their own Power Wheels cars. Now that I am tall enough to sell my body and time, I find myself attaining childhood dreams like buying my own Power Wheels car. I would not have ch ...more

Here's a two-in-one "tutorial" for you today; how to fold a paper airplane, and how to execute a belated St. Patrick's Day manicure. Just follow along and do as the da Vinci does—our adroit instructor is a surgical robot, with a hefty price tag of approximately 1.3 million dol ...more

Analog robots might seem a little backwards conceptually, but they are still really fun to make if you're into robotics and electronics. This video will teach you how to make a simple self-balancing analog robot. It's basically a small, robotic, analog Segway.

Gingerbread almost always requires eggs. Gingerbread cookies, on the other hand, aren't as dependent on them. But when dealing with the sophisticated recipe for Android 2.3 Gingerbread, it couldn't be completely baked without an egg or two. More specifically— an Easter egg. G ...more

Robot Unicorn Attack It's a very small flash game from adultswim that's like nothing else you've ever played. http://games.adultswim.com/robot-unicorn-attack-twitchy-online-game.html Unimpressed by the image, right? That's a typical reaction. Once you play it though, here is ...more

This medical how-to video details a robotic assisted hysterectomy in a patient with early stage endometrial/uterine cancer. Anatomy of the pelvis and the technique of a robotic hysterectomy is demonstrated. Watch and learn the surgical techniques used to performed a robotic hy ...more

One amazing Japanese papercraft enthusiast has built a walking 'robot' that's made of nothing more than paper, rubber bands, and a few wooden shafts for stability. It's been dubbed the 'Paper Robot III,' and even the cogs and gears are made of paper. The creator made a video d ...more

Ok, so perhaps V.I.K.T.O.R. won’t replace Walter Murch or Thelma Schoonmaker anytime soon, but this app that automatically assembles clips and photos from your iPhone and transforms them into mini-movies is another viable example of software-assisted creativity. V.I.K.T.O.R. E ...more

The robot dates all the way back to the early eighties... some even say late seventies. They key to learning the robot dance is to only move one muscle at a time. Learn how to do this old school dance move with help from an expert. Cedric Turner has been a professional hip-ho ...more

Lego Mindstorms is a great way to take your Legos to the next level by adding in the flavor of robotics! But, with taking it up to the next level, it does get a hair tougher! And if you're having trouble working with the Mindstorms software, this great video with Patrick Norto ...more

MultiCuber achieves another world's first: the timed relay solve of 2x2x2, 3x3x3, 4x4x4 and 5x5x5 Rubik's cubes. We've seen quite a few speedy rubik's cube solvers on WonderHowTo. However, this robot (built entirely out of a LEGOs) uses an algorithm that can can solve a cube ...more

Want to build your own life-sized, working replica of WALL-E? Be prepared to take on a second job! Mike Senna spent two years perfecting his own version, working 25 hours a week and totaling somewhere around 3,800 hours for the whole project. He had no blueprints to go by, so ...more

Terminator Salvation is the fourth film out in theaters right now, starring Christian Bale as John Connor, the near-leader of the Resistance, and Sam Worthington as Marcus Wright, a mysterious new prototype robot, a one-of-a-kind. It also has a cameo of Arnold Schwarzenegger i ...more

War leaves a lot of stuff behind. Torn families, delegitimized institutions, mass graves, and unexploded ordinances litter the post occupation landscape. Whether or not you have driven the imperialist out, or are still in the phase of armed resistance, you will need the abilit ...more

This robot is BEAM bot inspired. First we build up the Motor Drive, an excellent and cheap Robot Bot-Base. We start with the Tamiya kit, get it going, then strap on a battery and a drag wheel, center the drag wheel. Tape it all in place with bright yellow tape and make a BEAM ...more

This video explains how to build a robot with the basic ability to scribble on paper. The narrator gives website addresses for more examples on completed robots and various information on the subject. The Robot is built using a plastic cups and wooden sticks for legs and suppo ...more

This scorpion toy was constructed by Make Magazine with a Twitchie Robot Kit. If you're afraid of real life scorpions this friendly toy might help you get used to them. His plush body is made from some fabric aiming to make him look like an Arizona bark scorpion, which are tan ...more

Herbie the Mousebot is a very quick, easy-to-build, light-chasing robot kit, perfect for beginners. This little robot is so quick, you have to run to keep up with him! This is from make magazine. MAKE brings the do-it-yourself mindset to all the technology in your life. MAKE ...more

Love folk art but could do without the folk? Prepare to have your heart stolen by a self-folding origami automaton. Scientific American writes, "Researchers at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) have invented a real-life Transformer, a d ...more